A Good, Respectable, Christian, American Citizen
by snazzyshepherd
Summary: A letter from the security guard in the elevator about five years after the events in the Pentagon.


To Representative Doctor Hank McCoy, on the topic of mutants.

I didn't sign up for this.

Now I knew working at the Pentagon came with plenty of dangers, especially since I was one of the men guarding the imprisoned genocidal maniac that killed the president, but I never thought anything like _this_ would happen to me. _Never_.

I'm a good man! I pay my taxes, I go to work, I come home, I cook dinner, I tuck my children into bed every night, I say "hi" to my neighbors when they wave at me. I have a rose garden for God's sake! I'm a good, respectable, Christian, American citizen!

So what did I do to deserve this?

I mean... the day started out like any other; I got up that morning, made my kids breakfast, got them dressed, got _myself_ dressed, packed lunches, took my kids to school, and I went to work. The good life, right? Well I drew the figurative short straw that day, because my higher up picked me to deliver the prisoner's lunch.

Easy peasy, right?

Wrong. Nobody likes delivering Lensherr's lunch. You have to be screened twice before you can even walk down the hallway, making sure you don't have any metal on you, and then you have to walk past the stoic hall guards. There's like... twenty of them, and they're all super angry looking. I swear to God every time I walk past them they give me this _look_ like I'm trying to steal a baby penguin out of the zoo or something.

Never mind.

Anyway, I got picked to deliver, and so I went through the usual routine. I was scanned and prodded until they deemed me metal-less, and I got into the elevator to go down and give the prisoner his lunch. Yeah, and pardon my French, but that's when shit hit the ceiling.

So I get onto the elevator, like a good, respectable, Christian, American citizen does when delivering lunch to a genocidal maniac, and then there's this breeze right as the doors close. It knocks my hat off, right? And seeing as we're twenty seven floors below the ground, a breeze like that was cause for concern. Not that I was _concerned_ at all. In fact, at the time, I thought somebody had maybe turned on a fan or something.

I lean down to pick up my hat, and I see somebody else in the reflection of the elevator. That's when I got freaked. Nobody got on the elevator with me before the doors closed, so needless to say it was a little unnerving. I thought maybe I was seeing things so I turned to look, and sure enough, there was some teenager - maybe seventeen at the oldest - standing next to me in the goddamned elevator.

Obviously I was a little scared, like any good, respectable, Christian, American citizen would be in such a situation, so you can't blame me for not... calling security or pulling my gun or whatever people have been telling me I should've done. All I really managed to do was take a tiny step back, before the kid pulled a roll of duct tape on me.

I swear to Jesus himself I've never seen anyone move so fast. It was like I'd been caught up in a tornado of duct tape and wind. And the next thing I knew I was stripped down to my boxers and socks, taped up to the wall of the elevator with the food tray laying on the ground in front of me. The kid had my uniform on, his clothes discarded in a pile to the left of me, and he had the nerve to _smile_ at me. I swear it was like the devil had just walked into my life right there.

The doors of the elevator opened and I only managed to get a small look at the tray in the kid's hands before he had walked out, and I saw some sort of note. I might not be remembering clearly, but I think it said "Watch for glass". It was when I saw that note that I realized all hell was about to break loose, and I was duct taped to a wall.

Have you ever tried shouting for help when your entire body is suspended on a wall with your mouth duct taped shut in the middle of a closed, sound proofed elevator? Well it's a lot more difficult then I ever thought it would be. I remember I was praying for my life in that moment, because I genuinely thought I was going to die. I was praying and wondering why me, a good, respectable, Christian, American citizen deserved to be killed like this.

That's when I heard the alarms.

Now I hadn't eaten lunch yet that day, and at that point I was glad I hadn't, because if I had any sort of food in my system it would've come out of me as shit in my pants. The doors of the elevator opened once again and I clenched my eyes shut, hoping my death would be quick and painless. There was a gust of wind and I knew my life was about to end.

Fortunately, nobody killed me. Unfortunately, when I finally opened my eyes the kid was back in his normal clothes with the prisoner Erik Lensherr. And the elevator was moving up. I don't remember much of their conversation, but Lensherr looked like he was going to throw up the whole time, and the kid kept trying to interact with me. I couldn't hear a lot of it, my ears were mostly covered with duct tape that was keeping my head against the wall, but I'm almost positive they figured out that Lensherr was his father.

But I mean, on the other hand, I might be completely off.

Anyway, the doors opened, Lensherr got punched, I think the rest of that part is on the security feed, but the doors closed after that and several bullets hit the outside, but no damage was done to me. I think I might've been in there for an hour, because I can remember thinking I was dead for a while. I literally thought I was dead. I thought I had died and gone to hell, and I was wondering why a good, respectable, Christian, American citizen like me would have that happen to him.

All I can say now is that kid in the elevator was a mutant, and if that's what all of them are capable of, we need a registration act. I've read what Doctor Bolivard Trask has written about his Sentinel program, and I believe it was cancelled with good reason. However, it should be mandatory for all mutants to make themselves known to the government, and to the people. I know many may not agree, but I think this for the safety of my children.

Thank you for your time,

Security Officer Robert Kelly


End file.
